Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 2
The Kathmandu Kids Entertainment Workshops
Yoram I. Chisik, Alissa N. Antle, Brian Birtles, Elena Márquez Segura
and Cristina Sylla
Abstract
The Kathmandu kids workshops at Advances in Computer Entertainment
(ACE) brought together local children and leading entertainment media researchers
from around the world in a daylong exploration of how children interact with and
think about the latest innovations in computer entertainment and what these inno-
vations or the lack thereof mean to their lives. The result was a mixture of surprise,
play, inquiry and reflection. In this chapter, we describe the ideas behind the children
workshops concept and the individual workshops themselves, the settings in which
the workshops took place and the nature of the participants and the overall experience
and outcome of the workshops.
Keywords
Children
·
Participatory design
·
Games
·
Workshops
·
IC4D
2.1
Introduction
Designing for children is notoriously hard. Designing for children in developing
countries is doubly hard as the physical distance between the developer and the
target audience, financial constraints and other logistical difficulties make it almost
impossible to employ the participatory and emphatic design practices that are the
hall mark of a conscientious child-oriented design practice.
Since the 2012 Advances in Computer Entertainment (ACE) conference was
held in Nepal, a country with severe infrastructure and development challenges,
